Wood burning problems? The wrong kind of weather!

I had my chimney swept and the annual maintenance for my wood-burning stove today.

I had problems burning wood last year, both to get the logs to start burning properly and keep burning properly.  Mark* couldn't see any reason why there should be a problem with my stove (and there is not much to go wrong with a woodburner).

He said it was likely to be the weather. Last winter there were several long periods of low pressure. So fingers crossed for this year.

*Mark Killick 07914 041813 if you want a chimney swept and/or a woodburner maintained in Walthamstow/Woodford area (but this is his busy period, he's booking for December now!)

For the want of a car a wheel was lost...

For the want of a car a wheel was lost. For the want of a wheel the computer table was lost. For the want of the computer table some money for the charity shop was lost.

A week or so ago I had brought home a small table someone had left on the pavement to be taken away. So I was able to get rid of the computer table, used as a side table.

I checked with the charity shop yesterday that, in these days of lap-tops and tablets, they could sell a computer table, and they could. So today I wheeled it there, but it lost two of its wheels and the screws that held in the keyboard flap. So not in sellable condition!

I wheeled it home again, leaving it outside in the hope that the East European totters would take the metal and I could then fit the "wooden" bits in the wheelie bin. If I had passed a skip on the way home I would have heaved it in there, but the only skips were right opposite my house and outside the house two doors up.

This evening when I went to feed my neighbour's cats, the whole computer table had gone.

Most of the time I don't need a car, but every now and then like today it would be really useful!

Blackberries: What a difference the city makes

Round my way the blackberries are over. From previous years' experience I would expect them to taste horrible (the devil spits on them at the end of September, according to folklore) if they weren't.

My boss and his wife, who live out in the middle of Essex, near Saffron Walden, were picking blackberries yesterday - large and juicy.

Here I expect the best of the crop of blackberries end of July to beginning of September.

A clothes dryer would be nice right now!

When my father was an art student he visited a friend from the army who had recently become a father. This would be early 1950s. There were nappies strung up to dry across the kitchen. My father could remember driving back to College on his motorcycle thinking "Another good man down". In a few years he was in the same situation with my nappies needing to be got dry.

This time of year it is not warm enough for clothes to dry quickly. But it is not cold enough for me to put my central heating on, so drying clothes, sheets, towels, kayak gear, etc, is a problem. My kayak trousers which I will be wearing tomorrow are still slightly damp from last week.

We have had some lovely sunny days recently, and today was forecast to be dry with some sun. So I put my washing out on the rotary dryer. It was misty - the two items I had handwashed, rinsing in warm water, steamed as I hung them out!

The mist did not clear for ages. No blue sky until the afternoon. Very little sun. Sheets, towels and clothes still damp and had to be put on clothes horses indoors to finish off.

Luckily I live alone. If part of a couple, or even worse a family, I would find space for a clothes dryer, however ungreen that might be!

Competition for off-cuts

This afternoon on my way to the shops, just round the corner from the end of my road, I saw several lengths of clean wood, 50/60 cms long with screws sticking out of them. A short time with a screwdriver and then sawn* in half they would be perfect for my wood-burning stove.

On the way home they were still there. I took my neighbour's shopping into her house, put it all away, sorted out the cheque to pay for it. Went and put my shopping away and then walked up the road to find all the wood gone!

Is there another person with a wood-burning stove, or perhaps an open fire, locally? If so we will now be in competition with each other!

With 2 lots of shopping and one shopping trolley I already propping 3 canvas bags of shopping on the top of the trolley so couldn't have collected the wood on the way home.

* The spell-check didn't like this, but I've just checked my dictionary and it's in there!

New energy saving light bulb brightens the sitting room

Wow, I've been in this house a long time! The energy-saving light bulb which I put in the sitting room overhead light a few years after I moved here has blown. So I popped a new one in and it brightens up more quickly - and seems brighter overall (but I expect that's my imagination).

Should I be picking sloes in the Forest?

I was hoping this year to pick my sloes in a thicket alongside the path near the Middlesex Filter beds which I pass if  am taking my cycle ride southwards along the Lea Navigation. However someone picked those in August.

Down in the south it is not a good idea to leave sloes until the first frost as is advised (it saves pricking them with a needle to get the juices to flow). By the time that happens here the sloes have either fallen off or shrivelled up. August seems a bit early though - I pick mine in September.

So on my day off today I went to Chingford Plain on the edge of Epping Forest. The first clump of sloes bushes I came to had plenty of sloes to fill my soya dessert tub with, and plenty left over for someone else.

Picking fungi in Epping Forest is forbidden, mainly because people doing it commercially were taking too many. I am a little worried about whether I should be picking sloes. I don't think I will be making any difference to wildlife. Presumably something eats them - would the stones passing through the digestive tract of an animal be how the plants are distributed? But I think the vast majority of sloes not picked go to waste.

I would quite happily pick blackberries in the Forest, so have decided - for now - that I can do it.

I will be pricking the sloes this evening as I catch up on iplayer.